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“Did it hurt you? To watch me suffer?” I said carefully, trying to keep the ragged, bleeding edge of hope out of my voice.
“Yes,” she said bluntly. “But that’s because I’m a normal, compassionate person. It would have hurt me to see Gahn Thaleo suffer too, just so you know!”
Curses.
“Then you must be hurting deeply, now,” I told her bitterly, “because your words are making me suffer.”
She resumed stroking the cloth against my skin. I nearly lost myself to the cooling, flaming rapture of her touch.
But I was not so lost that I missed the confusion on her face.
“What do you mean? Are you jealous of Gahn Thaleo?”
I forced out a bark of a laugh that I immediately regretted. My ribs screamed, and I gritted my fangs against the pain.
“What would I have to be jealous of?” I hissed between my clenched fangs. “I am Gahn Thaleo’s superior in every way.”
“I mean, because I just said it would hurt me to see him suffer,” she clarified. She needn’t have done so. I knew exactly what she was asking me. And,blast it all into the cursed sky, she was right.
I remained sullenly silent. I expected the silence to stretch between us, but Zuh-Tephanie spoke again, surprising me. She studiously avoided my gaze, speaking somewhat haltingly.
“You have no reason to be jealous of him. For a time, I’d thought you were the last man on this planet I could ever want to be with.”
Her words were like blows.
“Are you trying to heal me,” I interrupted crossly, “or to kill me for good this time?”
She smirked, still avoiding my gaze.
“Let me finish. After spending some time around Gahn Thaleo, I realized I was wrong. I realized pretty quickly thathewas actually the last man on this planet I’d ever want to be with.”
My breath stilled. But I could not stop the surge of the next question.
“Why?”
I needed to hear all the ways Gahn Thaleo had failed to impress her. One, so that I could feel secure once again in my superiority over him. And two, so that I did not lose that sense of superiority by making whatever mistakes he had made and thus forfeit what little ground I’d gained with my mate.
“He’s... I’m not sure. Too reserved. Cold. Or maybe just excellent at hiding his emotions.”
“And I am not?” I pressed, hating how much I loved this. How much it soothed something deep inside me, to hear her tell me how I was different from him.
“You, cold?! Or good at hiding your emotions?” She snorted. “You are the exact opposite of that.”
Her eyes finally found their way back to mine.
“If Gahn Thaleo’s a mountain, then you’re a storm.” She suddenly stopped, chewing on her lip, looking unhappy.
“What is it?”
“I’ve always loved storms.”
My heart did not seem to be working properly. I’d thought her words from before might kill me, but I felt entirely more sure that she was actually killing me with hope, instead.She said I was like a storm and that she loves storms. I will become the stormiest storm that ever stormed over these mountains.
I just needed to know how.
“And how, precisely, am I like a storm?”
She paused, looking thoughtful for a moment.
